Meet the Patels

Ravi Patel—LA-based actor and director—is in crisis. He's nearly 30 years old and not married. His parents, who emigrated from India when they were young, make it clear to him that his first priority in his present life is to get married and preferably to another Patel. This starts the first of many in-movie explanations to help those of us who aren't from India understand that country's marriage customs. Nearly everyone from a certain part of India is named Patel and they're all related but they're now far removed. (Sort of like the "Smiths.") It's a super-enormous extended family with platinum-level familial rights that Patels around the world well understand.

Ravi's problem is that he's not sure he wants to marry a Patel from India. He was born and grew up in the US and he has different expectations. Yet his upbringing and culture call to him. Part of him wants to be traditional. Part of him does not. He's stuck in the middle and the parents are impatient. Very impatient.

This film documents a real year in Ravi Patel's life and follows him as he seeks a marriage partner in the traditional Indian way, modified by American cultural tones. His parents work very hard to find him a mate using the international Patel underground, which includes the extended Patel family of aunts, uncles, and cousins; biographies of available mates not necessarily written by the candidates themselves; and an annual Patel Matrimonial Convention created to help young Patels meet as many marriage candidates as possible in the shortest possible time. Ravi even flies cross country tracking down possible mates.

Although it's a documentary, this is a truly funny movie with a lot of heart. The parents want what they think is best for Ravi and Ravi wants to please his parents and fit in with the extended Patel family. There are many funny scenes as this year-long quest unfolds and there are humor-laden extenuating circumstances as well. Two of these:

1. Ravi's older sister Geeta is the cinematographer and she happens to live with Ravi in LA. She's not married either.

2. Ravi has a girlfriend of two years that he's broken up with just before the movie starts. She's a pale redhead and the parents do not know about her.

Do not get the idea that this movie is strictly for people whose heritage traces to India. Every young adult in America is having trouble finding a mate, Internet or no Internet. These situations and the humor transcend any one culture. This is a truly heartwarming film for anyone looking to find someone to go through life with. It is well worth seeing. It opens in three cities on September 11 and then more widely a week later.

We saw this movie through the San Jose Camera Cinema Club, which will be starting its 20th season this fall.

"Meet the Patels" (2014 release; 88 min.) brings the story of Ravi Patel (TV actor best known for his work in Past Lives , and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) and his quest for the perfect mate. As the movie opens, we see an animated sequence in which Ravi is telling us what's been going on. We then go back 2 years, when he and his parents and sister go on a family vacation to India. And that it is a "family" vacation becomes all too clear as it turns out in his dad's home village of Gujarat, most people are names Patel. Eventually Ravi decides to try the matchmaking skills of his parents (who themselves married in an arranged wedding). Will Ravi find his perfect mate? To tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this movie is a labor of love for Ravi and his sister Geeta Patel, who co-directed. With little or no budget, they film the dating adventures or Ravi for over 2 years. And where the camera failed to capture an important moment it is filled in by a surprisingly charming animation. Did I tell you that the Patel parents are in the movie? "Almost 30, never married: Code Red!" is how Ravi describes himself. His dad came to the US in 1967, and obviously has done very well for himself. He is also a doting dad, always ready, willing and able to give advice to his kids, whether they want it or not. There are plenty of hilarious scenes in the first half of the movie, to the obvious enjoyment of the theater audience. The second half of the movie is not so much laugh-out-loud funny, but more a reflection on the importance of family. Please note: you do NOT have to be Indian or Indian-American to enjoy this movie (I am not). There is a surprising amount of great music placement throughout the film, including MIA, Hot Chocolate, Soup Purpose, and many others. This movie was first released at the 2014 Los Angeles Film festival. No idea why this has been sitting on the shelves for over a year before finally getting released in theaters...

"Meet the Patels" opened this weekend out of the blue at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati without any pre-release advertising or hype. I love a good documentary, and so I checked it out. The early evening screening where I saw this at was attended much better than I had anticipated, and I should point out that there were quite a few from the Indian community here in Cincinnati. This is a light-hearted documentary that flew by in no time. If you like documentaries or a glimpse at the dating scene in the Indian-American community, you cannot go wrong with this. "Meet the Patels" is worth checking out!

People pleasing, indecisiveness, general inexperience, a little un-savvy--and caught in a very strict, very traditional, but no longer quite functional system--omg. This movie in so many ways relates to my experience as a white girl in the American South, uber Christian.

Sure, it would be great if this kid knew himself more, was sure of what he wanted, and went after it tenaciously. But he is evolving slowly. With evolving "rules." I want to believe he'll get there. I want to believe we'll all get wherever it is we really want to go. In the meantime, I appreciated getting to know him, his family, and his dual cultures, and I enjoyed being along for a very relatable ride.

It's amazing how well this thing was edited, and how well it came together. Even though the footage was rough, the film was fun to watch.

Greetings again from the darkness. These days the topic of racism is usually only addressed in the form of hatred and closed mindedness. This documentary/comedy looks at how racism within a culture is sometimes not only acceptable, but even encouraged as a tradition … and somehow it makes some sense.

You might recognize Ravi Patel. He is an actor from Transformers and "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia", and here his real life search for a wife is the focus – as is the cultural contrasts between his roots in India and his single life in the United States. Ravi co-directs with his sister Geeta Patel, though Ravi is predominantly on screen while Geeta spend her time operating the camera … while simultaneously jabbing and prodding her 29 year old brother with questions on his dating approach.

The movie picks up when Ravi has recently split with his long time girlfriend, Audrey Wauchope. Despite being very close with his parents, there is one reason Ravi never informed them of the relationship: Audrey is a white girl, not an Indian. Ravi's parents are the product of an arranged marriage, the long-standing cultural tradition that not only matches male and female Indians, but takes it a step further by only pairing up Patels with roots in the same small geographic area of India. It's a form of selective mating that dates back many generations.

Things get interesting and the laughs pick up as Ravi agrees to let his parents work the Indian dating network so that he can test out their traditions – in hopes of finding a match as well-suited as what theirs is. This process begins with "biodata"; a type of personal resume submitted by boys and girls – a precursor to the meet-up.

It really plays like a home movie, or a video journal, as Geeta films Ravi on dates and directly after, as he provides feedback on whether it was a good match. There is also a creative use of black & white animation to fill in the interview gaps where only Ravi's audio is available.

The family quest to find a mate for Ravi provides some interesting and entertaining insight into the culture, but the best parts of the film come courtesy of the parents. The mother and father are exceptionally intelligent and very loving and engaged in supporting the success of their kids. Whenever the film drags a bit, a scene with either parent picks us right back up. It's their commitment to the cause that highlights the cultural customs and challenges faced by immigrants as they struggle to get in step with American society while holding onto the tradition they so respect.

In effect, a content-light trawl through one man's dating history, with a half-hearted attempt to find some meaning or pattern in it. Doesn't really work nor add up to anything. Despite that, it's watchable up to a point, but there aren't any surprises and it doesn't involve you.